Book Review of Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren

Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
by Tish Harrison Warren
IVP Formatio
ISBN 978-0-8308-4628-8
Reviewed by Clint Walker

For those of you who are readers of this blog, I apologize! I have received this book quite a while back for review. However, as is the case with many of the books that I review that I want to really dig into, this review is coming to you a little later than it should. It is a well-loved book by this point in many circles, having won Christianity Today's book of the year. Since the publication of this book I have also had the opportunity to see miss Warren speak, and she communicates as authentically and powerfully in person as she does in this book. I recommend getting yourself a copy as soon as you can.

Tish Harrison Warren is an Anglican priest (Church of England but not Episcopal). This is important for the reader to understand. As I understand, she came to this tradition as an adult, and it really informs her book in powerful ways. You see, the premise of the book is that the liturgy of our everyday lives, if we let it, can mirror the liturgy of the church, and vice versa. Both the rhythms of our workday life and the liturgy of the church can work together to form us into the kind of people that God wants us to be. There has to be some intentional openness to being grown through this each liturgy, and the symbiosis between the two, but the growth is indeed possible, and has some beauty to it.

I remember when I was first teaching some of the practices I had learned regarding spiritual formation with young adults, there was quite a lot of resistance from some young mothers who struggled to understand how to implement spiritual disciplines into their everyday life while their kids were young. Of course, they were correct. It is hard to take time for one's self when you live your life is a hamster wheel of diaper changes, feedings, baths, and playing on the floor with one's kids. However, Tish Harrison Warren opens up the possibility of reflecting on the ordinary routines of the day in order to discover new movements of the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.

The book is both winsome and beautiful. I highly recommend it to all.